


Someone to watch over me

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27229156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Charles asks Max how he can handle sentry duty when he's so afraid all the time.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Someone to watch over me

“How do you brace yourself to go out there, frightened as you are?” he asked his friend as Maxwell frowned at his watch face, the starting hour of sentry duty approaching. 

“Don’t hide it good do I?”

“No, but I wouldn’t want you to hide with me anyway.”

That pleased him. “I, uh, you’re not gonna laugh, Major?”

“No, Max. Do I often ask questions merely to mock you with the answers?”

“You used to.” 

He had. 

Before their Christmas truce. 

Before he had come to realize that out of an entire gathering of the camp, the wounded, and two orphanages, Max had been paying attention to him, concerned over his comfort. A true friend. 

“Do you require an apology? Atonement of some kind? A declaration of unwavering and unending accord, perhaps?” he teased. 

“Nah. I just like to get a rise out of you and make you go all Harvard fancy.” He pronounced it “Haah-vaad” as Charles did, a strangely touching show of his belief that the Major knew best about some things. Whenever he did this, Charles longed to ask him to spell the school’s name for him, but he didn’t want to embarrass him. He chuckled to think of how it might look on a Scrabble board - all of those a’s!! 

“You are skirting my question, you know,” said the Major. 

“You expected something else?” Klinger stood and spun a little so that the skirt he wore flared - some heavy mulberry fabric with goldenrod eyelets. 

“Winsome as ever.”

“Winsome, lose some, but always the height of fashion.”

Winchester raised his glass, saluting this show of wit. He could have kept this going (Klinger wasn’t tall, which would allow him to play off of “height,”) but he still wanted an answer. “So how do you do it? Prayer? Gypsy magic?”

Klinger warmed his hands around his coffee cup. It was about all their coffee was good for, really. “My Uncle Hashim loves the ponies, Major.”

Charles lifted an eyebrow. “You have an infinite supply of ‘my uncle,’ stories, Max.”

“Hey, you asked. And you’ve hit me with one or two Winchester whatchamacallits - logos? Slogans?”

“Mottos, Max.”

“Right. So Uncle Hashim is around the track so much that he makes friends with this exercise rider. He notices the guy can get the horses to really go full out. So he asks the guy, ‘Hey, whaddaya do that makes them run like they’re gonna any second get wings?’”

“And the man says, ‘hay is for horses’ and details an elaborate scam?” Charles guessed, amused. 

“Nope. He tells my Uncle that before they get out of the gate, he tells the horse what they’re running for. Dewdrops on snowball bushes, maybe, or when you wake up too early and realize you can snuggle back in to sleep. Something nice like that. And if he said it and believed it, those horses would run for that good thing with their whole hearts.”

Charles was still smiling softly, enjoying Klinger’s pure, guileless expressiveness. 

“So, Major, I’m like those horses. I can’t guard this place for some general or I Corps or the army. So, I tell myself about something good. Strong tea or grilled cheese or Hibiki’s stinky fish oil breath - and I protect that.” 

Charles held three fingers to his brow bone in a casual but very sincere salute. “How very clever, Max.” 

“It’s gotta be like that for you, too, Major. You don’t care about the army. What do you think about when you fight to save those boys?” 

“It is my job, Max. I suppose that I think that I must because I can. Because I am here.” 

“Nah. You do it to get back to Honoria. Or because one of those boys might go back home and write a symphony you’ll love. You do it for love, sir. I know - I’ve seen ya.” He shook his sleeve off of his wrist to check the time. “And I’ll  _ be  _ seeing ya, ‘cause I’m due out in the cold and the dark. Have a good night, Major.”

“Be careful, Max.”

“Are you kidding? In this skirt? This flower petal pattern took  _ forever _ to put in. It’s not going to get dirty or shot up, I promise.”

Then he was gone and Charles remained, watching after that too-slender figure that had been swallowed up by the night. 

_ You do it for love, sir _ . 

Maxwell was much more correct than he imagined. Someday soon, Charles planned to let him know just who it was that inspired him in his bleakest and most desperate hours. 

He smiled and looked down the main road from the camp and hoped, hoped, hoped that he might join the list of things that enabled the fine-boned and fashionable form of Maxwell Klinger to walk into the dark, gun in hand. 

The Major stayed awake until the Corporal’s shift ended and he knew he was safe. Max never knew that he was watched over or watched for, and fell into his cot that night without knowing that he had worn a path not just through the camp, but in the Major’s vast heart.

End!


End file.
